The Premier.

Interjections.

Supplementary question? The member for Ottawa West–Nepean.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and congratulations on your new role.

I want to thank the member for providing so much information, specifically about his own neighbourhood. I respect and understand that, as we suffer with the same issues in my own area of Thornhill. We know that more and more experts agree—and this is solid information—that supply and demand go hand in hand. The major driver of a housing crisis—it’s pretty simple: When there’s not much going around, the price goes up. Can the member please share with us and the House how this critical policy that you talked about will affect not only Ottawa and Toronto, but future locations?

I would like to thank the member for Ottawa West–Nepean for her articulate comments on this bill and for sharing some of the examples of the challenges that people in her riding are facing as they deal with the housing crisis that we have in Ontario. She addressed some of the real solutions that would address those problems in her remarks, but I wondered if she could just try to summarize in one minute why this bill is so ineffective at dealing with the real issues that people are facing in her riding, and all of our ridings, and what would have been a better approach.

I want to thank the member from Ottawa West–Nepean. You bring a refreshing, new perspective to this particular bill and on many other issues on behalf of the good people in Ottawa West–Nepean.

My question to you is: There’s a group of individuals we seem to not be talking about enough, which is our public servants. This bill risks huge potentials of politicizing certain decisions that are being made at the leadership’s office. These individuals go to work each and every day to best serve their community as a whole. They go in wearing the community on their backs, in their hearts, and this is potentially going to put them in a very difficult position as far as the decisions they make. And those are backed by mayors such as David Crombie, Barbara Hall, Art Eggleton and David Miller, who say that this particular bill risks ending meaningful democratic local government.

Why should we be engaging not only with the public but also those that are serving our community? Why is engaging them, having a discussion with them so important?

Thank you for the member from Ottawa West–Nepean’s presentation. Speaker, in her remarks, the member said that the city of Ottawa doesn’t need this bill, the mayor of Ottawa doesn’t need this power etc. But she ignored the fact and the reality, which is that across this province, growth is happening. We have heard that one third of Ontario’s growth over the next decade is expected to happen in Toronto and Ottawa, and we know that we need to plan for this growth. For too many years, we did not plan for the growth we are seeing now, and as a result, we have a shortage of housing.

My question to the member from Ottawa West–Nepean is, why does she not agree that we need to provide municipalities with the tools they need to accelerate the construction and to address Ontario’s housing crisis?

I know that the government frequently has trouble remembering that Ottawa is part of Ontario. When we had the unfortunate occupation of our city earlier this year, the Premier couldn’t even be bothered to come and see and assess the damage that people in Ottawa were experiencing. Nonetheless, I think when the entire city council of Ottawa condemns the bill, the mayor of Ottawa condemns the bill, the community associations of Ottawa condemn the bill, it’s quite clear that Ottawa does not, in fact, want this bill and does not, in fact, need this bill and that this bill will not, in fact, address the needs of Ottawa.

There are currently 10,000 families on the waiting list for affordable housing in Ottawa. There are currently 500 families living in motel rooms and hotel rooms around the city, including in the Travelodge in Ottawa West–Nepean, because there’s not enough affordable housing available. The average cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Ottawa is $1,100, and yet the single rate for Ontario disability is $1,227 and the amount that a single person on Ontario Works gets is only $733. So I think from these numbers, it’s absolutely clear what the crisis is, and that is this government’s record.

What you are responsible for is what the rates of OW and ODSP have been for the past four years. What you are responsible for is the lack of rent control for the last four years. What you are responsible for is the lack of vacancy control for the last four years. So what you are responsible for is the housing and cost-of-living crisis for the past four years.

Members of this chamber might be forgiven—and their laughter demonstrates it—for not paying day-to-day attention to the planning decisions and debates at Ottawa city council; I can forgive you for not paying that close attention. So let’s make sure we know what we’re talking about.

Last fall, after literally years of work, after countless public delegations, negotiations with the home-building industry, consultations with community associations and other stakeholders, after extensive discussions and debates, Ottawa city council came to consensus—without a veto, without a carrot and a stick—and approved a new official plan. That was October 27, 2021, almost a year ago. Within this official plan, there are proposed plans for urban expansion to help create more neighbourhoods by partnering with the Algonquins of Ontario, an important part of Ottawa’s efforts towards reconciliation. In addition to adding these development lands, the official plan includes a direction to achieve the majority of growth through intensification and growing the city around rapid transit systems. It recognizes the city’s climate change master plan and seeks to reduce Ottawa’s greenhouse gas emissions by 100% by 2050. It includes higher density around higher-order public transit. The city, through the official plan, is embracing the idea of 15-minute neighbourhoods, not just in the downtown or inside the urban core, but in the suburbs as well. New communities in Orléans and Barrhaven and Kanata and Findlay Creek are now more dense than inner urban areas like the Glebe and Old Ottawa South.

Ottawa has the vision to address major issues facing us as a society. Creating livable communities with active transportation is a step towards dealing with Ontario’s affordability crisis. It’s a step towards the climate crisis. It’s a step towards addressing the physical fitness crisis. And it’s a step being held back by this government. The plan laid out in Ottawa’s official plan clearly provides the solution to tackling some of Ontario’s most serious social problems. It’s a plan that will spur growth and move housing forward—housing of all types—not just in Orléans, but across the city of Ottawa. And it’s stalled by this government. When council approved the plan last fall, the law said that the minister had 120 days to approve it. That would have left the decision until about March. Ottawa’s official plan continues to sit on the minister’s desk, collecting dust, waiting for approval. So, despite this minister and this government claiming that red tape is their enemy and that cutting it is imperative to solving the housing crisis, they’ve wrapped Ottawa’s aggressive housing goals in an enormous ball of red tape, and that ball of red tape is the minister’s signature.

If this government is serious about addressing Ontario’s and Ottawa’s housing crisis, the minister should first approve Ottawa’s official plan to get housing built, to bring in new lands for new communities, to address density and intensification around transit infrastructure.

As I’ve said, this is not a housing bill or a housing plan; this is a municipal governance bill.

I pointed out the important work that the city of Ottawa has done to measure its progress on so many critical elements of change.

I found it interesting that, in committee, an amendment to allow for the measurement of new housing built as a result of this bill was ruled out of order. It was ruled out of scope for the bill.

Thank you to the member for their presentation.

One of the most incredible things to me about this whole affair is the mayor of Ottawa finding out about it in the media, of all places.

If you’re the mayor of a municipality, and a government comes forward with a piece of legislation in the middle of an election and they don’t even bother to tell the mayor—well, they told one of the mayors, the mayor in Toronto, I assume because of their political stripe.

What kind of opposition is there in Ottawa to this, and how much of that has to do with no one in Ottawa, including the mayor, knowing anything about the legislation until it was presented?

It was ruled out of scope, not late. It was ruled out of scope, Madam Speaker, for the bill. So, if tracking the supposed results stemming from a piece of legislation is out of scope, then I don’t know what we’re doing. If we’re not going to track the results of what we do, what are we doing at all? It was ruled out of order because even the government knows that this is not a housing bill. It was ruled out of scope because it doesn’t address housing and the amendment was about housing. So even the government knows that this isn’t a housing bill. It’s a municipal governance bill, and one that doesn’t address the most important governance issues facing Ontario municipalities.

Given that this bill is about the city of Toronto and the city of Ottawa, the first thing they should do is to approve Ottawa’s official plan: to bring new lands into the urban boundary, to change policies around intensification and density around transit, to address the missing middle, and to help Ottawa build more and better 15-minute communities for all the residents of the nation’s capital.

I know that the mayor was caught off guard. We were at the Navan Fair a day later, and he told me that he had yet to be called about this bill.

Certainly, if you’re going to make change and work collaboratively with municipalities in Ontario, the easiest thing you can do is pick up the phone and have a chat before you go to a microphone.